Semantic thumbnails

ABSTRACT

A method is provided for displaying a page formed of discrete elements, such as a Web page, on different computing devices. The method converts the page into a semantic thumbnail, which preserves the overall appearance of the page and displays readable text segments that enable a user to identify main areas of the page. The semantic thumbnail is adaptable to different screen sizes and target font sizes. The method enlarges unreadable text segments in a miniature version of the page. The method also trims the enlarged text segments to fit the width of the semantic thumbnail by summarizing or cropping text in the enlarged text segments.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates in general to computer programs and, inparticular, to computer programs for providing semantic thumbnails.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Explosive growth in computer networks in the last two decades haschanged the uses of computers dramatically. The largest computernetwork, commonly known as the Internet, is now connecting millions ofcomputers together, providing services like e-mail, file transfer, andthe World Wide Web (“WWW”)—hypermedia information retrieval acrossdifferent computer platforms. Meanwhile, small mobile computing devices,such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) including hand-held andpalm-type computers and the like, are becoming more popular for use bybusiness people and others who must travel. Increasingly, users of smallmobile computing devices are able to connect to computer networks suchas the WWW to download and view WWW content.

Most existing Internet content is designed for desktop computers and istherefore not always well suited for smaller computing devices. Inparticular, Web pages usually are designed with a desktop screen inmind. Many Web pages use multi-column layouts and/or are pre-formattedto a certain page width. For example, FIG. 1A illustrates a Web page100A that is designed for a desktop screen. The Web page 100A has threecolumns, wherein the left column contains a text block 104A, the centercolumn contains an image 106A, and the right column contains anothertext block 108A. On a small screen device, such as a PDA, it often ishard to read the content of a Web page such as Web page 100A. If the Webpage 100A is rendered in a desktop-like two-dimensional layout on asmall form factor, i.e., small screen, device, a user has to scrollextensively, both horizontally and vertically, in order to find and viewmaterial relevant to the user.

To reduce the need for extensive within-page browsing and scrolling,different approaches have been proposed to render a desktop Web page100A on small screen devices. Currently, there are four generalapproaches: device-specific authoring; multi-device authoring; automaticre-authoring; and client-side navigation. The first two obtainhigh-quality results by taking the specifics of the small screen deviceinto account during page authoring. In exchange, they require thecooperation of the individual Web page authors. This prevents thesetechniques from being applied to already-existing Web pages, whichlimits the practical applicability of these approaches.

Contrariwise, automatic re-authoring does not require the collaborationof page authors or use their efforts. Therefore, automatic re-authoringis a more encompassing approach. In general there are two mainapproaches for automatic re-authoring. The first approach is pagereformatting. The second approach is page scaling.

The most popular example of page reformatting is to arrange amulti-column Web page 100A into a single column to fit the width of asmall screen. For example, the Small-Screen Rendering™ program providedby opera.com takes such an approach. Single-column views eliminate theneed of horizontal scrolling. However, single-column views considerablychange overall page layout and require a corresponding larger amount ofvertical scrolling. For a typical desktop Web page 100A, single-columnviews can turn the Web page 100A into several PDA screens worth ofmaterial. FIG. 1B shows a single-column view 100B of the Web page 100Aillustrated in FIG. 1A. As illustrated in FIG. 1B, the text blocks 104A,108A and the image 106A of the Web page 100A are concatenated to form asingle column of text block 104B, image 106B, and text block 108B. As aresult, a user of the Web page 100B has to use the vertical scroll bar110 extensively in order to view the content of the Web page 100B.

Other page reformatting approaches increase font sizes of text and/orremove images in a desktop Web page. Such approaches affect the visualappearance of the Web page and thus often prevent users from recognizingthe Web page. For example, software such as the Power Browser providedby the Stanford Power Browser Project reduces page size by leaving outimages and by removing white spaces. Another text-based approachpreserves the layout of the text, but does not retain the images.

The main drawback of the page reformatting approaches is that theyabandon the layout information of a Web page, which prevents users fromleveraging past experience with the Web page or even recognizing the Webpage. They also can affect the layout of the Web pages intended by theoriginal authors. Therefore, page reformatting hinders the transfer ofusers' reading knowledge and experience with a desktop Web page to smallscreen devices.

To avoid the drawbacks of the page reformatting approach, researchershave proposed page-scaling approaches that preserve the original layoutof Web pages. These approaches provide users with a miniature version ofa Web page as a thumbnail (hereinafter “traditional thumbnail”). Atraditional thumbnail generally keeps the overall appearance of theoriginal Web page, thereby allowing users to recognize the Web page andto identify main areas. However, because the text content of the Webpage is generally unreadable in a traditional thumbnail, traditionalthumbnail text is not directly consumable. FIG. 1C illustrates atraditional thumbnail 100C, which is a miniature version of the Web page100A illustrated in FIG. 1A. As shown in FIG. 1C, the traditionalthumbnail 100C preserves the overall appearance of the original Web page100A. However, in the traditional thumbnail 100C, the text in the textblocks 104C and 108C and possibly the image 106C of the Web page 100Abecomes unreadable and/or unrecognizable. That is, a user cannot readilyread the content in the text blocks 104C, 108C; and the image 106C maynot be clearly recognizable. A user has to repeatedly zoom in to locatecontent of interest. Thus, such a size reduction forces a user toexplore the content of the Web page 100A in a time-consuming way.

Other page scaling approaches involve text summarization, which augmentstraditional thumbnails by highlighting the keywords in the content basedon user input. However, the applicability of enhancing traditionalthumbnails with user input keywords is limited to these cases whereusers can capture their intent with keywords. Even if users are able toexpress their intent verbally, this approach often fails due tovocabulary problems. Also, due to language ambiguities, the relevancy ofmaterial on a page is more easily determined when the keywords can beviewed in context.

In summary, a traditional thumbnail 100C of a desktop Web page 100Acaptures the layout, the look and feel of the page. This allows a userto visually match the page with past viewing experience. However,traditional thumbnails often make the content of the Web page 100Aunrecognizable. The present invention is directed to overcoming theforegoing problems associated with displaying pages, such as Web pages,on small screen display devices, such as PDAs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides a computer-implemented method, acomputer-readable medium, and a computing system for converting a page,such as a Web page, into a semantic thumbnail suitable for displaying onthe screen of a small form factor computing device, such as a PDA,cellular telephone, etc. The semantic thumbnail maintains the overallappearance of the page while disambiguating (clarifying) the textcontent of the page. More specifically, the text content is presented ina readable form even though the overall page is shrunk to fit the smalldisplay screen.

One exemplary embodiment of the invention converts a Web page into asemantic thumbnail suitable for displaying on a small form factorcomputing device requesting the Web page. The Web page is loaded uponreceiving a request for the Web page from the computing device andinformation about the computing device is obtained. Such informationincludes the target width of the semantic thumbnail and the minimum fontsize that ensures text to be readable on a computing device. The Webpage is then converted into a semantic thumbnail suitable for display onthe computing device. The semantic thumbnail has the same layout as theoriginal Web page and readable text.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention, converting a Web pageinto a semantic thumbnail includes (1) processing the Web page so thetext will be readable in the semantic thumbnail and (2) scaling the Webpage to the target width of the semantic thumbnail. These two actionscan be performed in either order. In the case that action (1) isperformed first, the text is enlarged to an intermediate font size, sothe text will be readable once the Web page is scaled in action (2).

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, processing the Webpage so the text will be readable in the semantic thumbnail includespartitioning the Web page into elements. The elements can be paragraphsof text, input boxes, option boxes, or any other specific units. Athreshold value is then calculated. For a Web page that has not beenscaled to the target width of the semantic thumbnail, the thresholdvalue is an intermediary font size. The intermediary font size (F_(i))is the result of multiplying the minimum font size (F_(m)) with theratio between the display width of the Web page (W_(wp)) and the targetwidth of the semantic thumbnail (W_(sm)).${Fi} = {F_{m}*\frac{W_{wp}}{W_{sm}}}$For a Web page that has been scaled, the threshold value is the minimumfont size that ensures text in the semantic thumbnail to be readable inthe computing device.

Each element in the Web page is then processed to see if the text in anelement is smaller than the threshold value. In the case that the textin an element is smaller than the threshold value, the method enlargesthe text in the element to the threshold value. Then the enlarged textis trimmed to fit into the width of the element.

In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, when trimmingthe enlarged text in an element so it fits into the width of theelement, selected words in each line of the enlarged text are removed sothe remaining text fits the width of the element. Preferably, theremoved words have the highest frequencies of appearances in thelanguage the text is written in. Such embodiments of the invention arebased on the assumption that the more often a word is used in alanguage, the less significance the word has toward the meaning of textwritten in the language. Alternatively, trimming the enlarged text in anelement includes preserving in each line of the enlarged text only wordsthat occur frequently in the text, but rarely in the language that thetext is written in. On the other hand, trimming the enlarged text in anelement comprises preserving in each line of the enlarged text specialterms, such as search terms or terms contained in the user profiledescribing interests of the current user of the computing device. Insituations where the width of the element cannot accommodate even oneword, a word selected from the enlarged text is cropped to fit the widthof the element.

In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, for a computingdevice that does not have a scaling capability, the Web page isprocessed and scaled before downloading to the computing device. For acomputing device that has scaling capability, the Web page is processed,downloaded to the computing device, and then scaled before the resultantsemantic thumbnail is displayed.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a semantic thumbnail canbe zoomed into a detail view, which displays the unabbreviated versionof the Web page. The detail view may display the Web page in its desktopformat or in a single-column view. Alternatively, the detail viewdisplays a shrunken version of the Web page that fits the display screenof the computing device. The semantic thumbnail and the detail view looksimilar enough for a user to maintain a sense of which areas in thesemantic thumbnail correspond to which areas in the detail view.

In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, readable textsegments of a semantic thumbnail may be displayed on top of atraditional thumbnail image of the Web page. The traditional thumbnailimage of the Web page is used as a background for displaying thereadable text segments of the semantic thumbnail.

In summary, the invention provides a computer-implemented method, acomputer-readable medium, and a computing system that generates asemantic thumbnail of a page, such as a Web page, suitable fordisplaying on a computing device. The semantic thumbnail preserves theoverall appearance of the page and disambiguates (i.e., clarifies) thetext content of the page. As a result, the invention enables a user toleverage the user's prior experience with the page and quickly identifythe content of interest.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of thisinvention will become more readily appreciated as the same become betterunderstood by reference to the following detailed description, whentaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIGS. 1A-1C are pictorial diagrams illustrating conventional ways ofdisplaying a desktop Web page on small form factor computing devices;

FIG. 2 is a pictorial diagram illustrating one exemplary computingsystem suitable for implementing the invention;

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram illustrating an exemplary proxyserver suitable for use in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a pictorial diagram illustrating an exemplary display on asmall form factor computing device;

FIG. 5 is a pictorial diagram illustrating one aspect of the invention,namely, a semantic thumbnail view of a Web page being zoomed into adetail view of the Web page;

FIG. 6 is a pictorial diagram illustrating another aspect of theinvention, namely, a semantic thumbnail being adapted to arbitraryscreen sizes and font sizes;

FIG. 7 is a pictorial diagram illustrating an alternative aspect of theinvention, namely, a semantic thumbnail overlaying a traditionalthumbnail depicted in FIG. 1C;

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram illustrating one exemplary process forproviding a semantic thumbnail of a Web page for a computing device;

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating one exemplary implementation of aprocess for converting a Web page to a semantic thumbnail as suitablefor use in FIG. 8; and

FIGS. 10 and 11 are flow diagrams illustrating one exemplaryimplementation of a process for processing text segments in a desktopWeb page to make them readable in a semantic thumbnail.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Embodiments of the invention provide a computing system, acomputer-implemented method, and a computer-readable medium for viewingpages, such as Web pages, on small form factor computing devices. Morespecifically, the invention converts a page formed of discrete elements,such as a Web page, into a semantic thumbnail suitable for displaying ona computing device. The semantic thumbnail preserves the overallappearance of the page and disambiguates content in the page. Morespecifically, in order to address the space limitation provided by thecomputing device requesting the page, the method summarizes or cropstext located in the elements of the page such that the text is readable.The semantic thumbnail thus enables a user to leverage the user's priorexperience with the appearance of the page and to quickly identify themain areas of interest in the page without extensive exploration of thepage.

Although the invention will primarily be described in the context ofprocessing HTML documents, and is described in the context of a Webpage, those skilled in the relevant art and others will appreciate thatthe invention is also applicable to other hypertext languages as well asother types of documents, such as maps, blueprints, images,spreadsheets, etc. Also, the invention will primarily be described inthe context of small form factor computing devices, such as PDAs andcellular telephones, for example. However, it is to be understood thatsome aspects of the invention may also be applicable in other contextsof which the following are only examples. For example, aspects of theinvention may be used to present search results information. Aspects ofthe invention may also be used to present preview information. Inaddition, the invention may be adapted for users who are visuallyimpaired by displaying content in a summarized version and in morereadable format.

The following description first provides an overview of a computingsystem in which the invention may be implemented. Then acomputer-implemented method is described. The computer-implementedmethod converts (i.e., shrinks) a Web page into a semantic thumbnailsuitable for displaying on a computing device. The semantic thumbnailpreserves the overall appearance of the Web page and disambiguates(clarifies) content of the Web page. The clarification is such that thetext of the semantic thumbnail is readable. The text may be a truncatedversion of the original text if the creation of the thumbnail reducesthe original text to an unreadable size. The illustrative examplesprovided herein are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit theinvention to the precise forms disclosed. Similarly, any steps describedherein may be interchangeable with other steps, or combinations ofsteps, in order to achieve the same result.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary computer system 200 suitable forimplementing the invention. The illustrated computer system 200comprises a plurality of computing devices 206A, 206B, 206C, at leastsome of which are small form factor computing devices, and a Web server202. The Web server 202 may be a computer that is associated with anorganization that provides content via the Internet.

The computing devices 206A-206C illustrated in FIG. 2 include a WebTV®206A, a personal digital assistant (“PDA”) 206B, and a mobile telephone206C. The computing devices 206A-206C may be associated with users210A-210C, respectively. The illustrated computing devices 206A-206Cshould be considered as exemplary and not limiting. A computing devicemay be any one of a number of computing devices including, but notlimited to, tablet personal computers, hand-held computing devices,personal digital assistants, mobile telephones, stand-alone memorydevices, electronic devices having some type of memory, and the like.

In some embodiments of the invention, the computing system 200 furtherincludes a proxy server 204. A proxy server 204 usually is a powerful PCor server, capable of conducting the computations that are necessary forthe invention, thus relieving the computing devices from performingheavy computation work. The proxy server 204 hosts a software componentthat implements aspects of the invention. The software component, namedherein a Web page converter program, receives Web page requests from theplurality of computing devices 206A, 206B, 206C through a network 208.The software component then loads the Web pages and converts them intosemantic thumbnails that preserve the layout of the Web pages andcontain readable texts. The approach of having a proxy server 204 hostthe software component for converting Web pages helps enable embodimentsof the invention to serve different platforms, i.e., accepting requestsfrom different types of computing devices. In such embodiments of theinvention, the proxy server 204 downloads Web pages from the Web server202 and processes them before rendering the Web pages to the requestingcomputing devices.

Other embodiments of the invention may not include a proxy server 204.The Web page converter program may exist in the Web server 202. In suchembodiments, the Web page converter program running on the Web server202 loads a Web page and converts the Web page before rendering the Webpage to the requesting computing device. In some embodiments of theinvention, the requesting computing device may be the Web Server 202itself.

The Web page converter program may also exist on the computing devicethat requests a Web page. In such embodiments, the requesting computingdevice requests and downloads a Web page from the Web server 202. TheWeb page converter program on the requesting computing device thenconverts the Web page. Such a computing device requires enough computingpower to handle the computations that are necessary for such embodimentsof the invention.

The computing devices 206A-206C, the Web server 202, and the proxyserver 204 depicted in FIG. 2 are configured to electronicallycommunicate via the network 208. The network 208 may be a Local AreaNetwork (LAN) or a larger network, such as a Wide Area Network (WAN) orthe Internet. As known to those skilled in the art and others, thecomputer system 200 may be configured to exchange documents, commands,and other types of data between the computing devices 206A, 206B, 206C,the Web server 202, and the proxy server 204. As will be appreciated bythose skilled in the art and others, the computer system 200 shown inFIG. 2 is a simplified example of one system suitable for implementingembodiments of the invention.

When software formed in accordance with aspects of the invention isimplemented in a computer system 200 of the type illustrated in FIG. 2,the software provides a way for users of small form factor computingdevices to easily view Web pages designed for larger computing devices.For example, in embodiments of the invention, a user of a computingdevice may request a Web page for display on the computing device. Inresponse to receiving the request, the Web server 202 transmits the Webpage to the proxy server 204. The proxy server 204 converts the Web pageinto a semantic thumbnail suitable for displaying on the requestingcomputing device. The semantic thumbnail displayed on the computingdevice requesting the Web page preserves the overall appearance of theWeb page includes readable text segments. If desired, in someembodiments of the invention, a user may zoom in on the semanticthumbnail to get a more detailed view of the Web page. The detail viewof the Web page provides the original and unabbreviated version of theWeb page.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a proxy server 204suitable for use in FIG. 2. The proxy server 204 shown in FIG. 3 isconnected to the network 208 (FIG. 2) through a network interface 302.The network interface 302 includes the necessary hardware and softwareto allow the proxy server 204 to communicate with other computingdevices connected to the network 208 using one or more suitablecommunication protocols, such as TCP/IP.

The proxy server 204 shown in FIG. 3 includes a processor 304, a memory306, all communicatively connected together and to the network interface302 by a communication bus 308. The memory 306 generally comprises RAM,ROM, and/or permanent memory. The memory 306 stores an operating system310 for controlling the general operation of the proxy server 204. Theoperating system 310 may be a general-purpose operating system such as aMicrosoft® operating system, UNIX®, or Linux® operating system. For easeof illustration and because they are not important to an understandingof the invention, FIG. 3 does not show other typical components of aproxy server 204, such as a display, input/output interface,computer-readable medium drive, etc. Also, FIG. 3 does not show othercomputing devices that may be connected to the proxy server 204.

The memory 306 additionally stores program code and data for a Web pageconverter program 312. The Web page converter program 312 may beprovided by a wholly separate application executing on the proxy server204. The Web page converter program 312 in this example may communicatewith the Web server 202, other computing device, or any of the computingdevices 206A, 206B, 206C (FIG. 2) via the network interface 302. In someembodiments of the invention, the Web page converter program 312receives Web page requests from the computing devices 206A, 206B, 206C.The program 312 loads the requested Web pages from the Web server 202.The program 312 then converts the Web pages into semantic thumbnailsthat preserve the overall appearance of the Web pages and providereadable text fragments. The program 312 serves the semantic thumbnailsto the computing devices that requested the Web pages. Running the Webpage converter program 312 on the proxy server 204, which preferably isa powerful machine such as a server or a personal computer, relieves theneed for processing on computationally weak mobile devices. Thisapproach also makes it easy to serve different platforms, such as thecomputing devices mentioned above. In other embodiments of theinvention, the Web page converter program 312 may be provided by asoftware process hosted and operated by the Web server 202, othercomputing device, or any of the computing devices 206A, 206B, 206C thatrequest content from the Web server 202.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary semantic thumbnail 100D generated by theWeb page converter program 312. The semantic thumbnail 100D is aminiature version of the desktop Web page 100A illustrated in FIG. 1A.As shown in FIG. 4, the semantic thumbnail 100D displays the Web page100A in its entire width. This helps a user to identify the Web page100A easily, leveraging on the user's possible prior experience with theWeb page 100A. The semantic thumbnail 100D also enables a user toidentify the main areas of interest in the Web page 100A withoutrepeated zooming, which is often required when “reading” a traditionalthumbnail 100C, illustrated in FIG. 1C and described above. Morespecifically, the schematic thumbnail 100D illustrated in FIG. 4includes the text blocks 104A, 108A and the image 106A contained in thedesktop Web page 100A shown in FIG. 1A. However, the text blocks 104Dand 108D shown in FIG. 4 do not contain all of the content of the textblocks 104A and 108A shown in FIG. 1A. The text has been truncated orreduced in some manner (see the following description). The remainingtext is readable in the semantic thumbnail 100D.

Similar to a traditional thumbnail 100C, semantic thumbnail 100Dpreserves the original page layout. This allows a user to identify theoverall page structure and helps a user to recognize the previouslyviewed Web page 100A. However, unlike a traditional thumbnail 100C, thesemantic thumbnail 100D provides readable text fragments that allow auser to understand the nature of the text in similar looking areas. Thereadable text minimizes or entirely eliminates the need for zooming orpanning activity for the purpose of locating content of interest, asrequired by a traditional thumbnail 100C. In order to preserve theoverall appearance of the Web page 100A and still make the text readablein the semantic thumbnail 100D, the text in the Web page 100A is reducedby summarization or cropping. FIG. 11 illustrates one exemplaryimplementation of a text reduction process and is discussed in detailbelow.

In some embodiments of the invention, when zoomed in, the semanticthumbnail 100D changes to a detail view displaying the original andunabbreviated version of the desktop Web page 100A. This zoominginteraction, called semantic zoom, is a zooming-in process that replacesthe abbreviated text in a semantic thumbnail 100D with complete text.FIG. 5 illustrates a semantic zoom. Here, a user has zoomed in on thetext block 108D in the semantic thumbnail 100D. The semantic thumbnail100D changes into the detail view 100E. The detail view 100E displaysthe original, unabbreviated version of the Web page 100A. In embodimentsof the invention, the detail view 100E may represent the original,unabbreviated version of the Web page 100A in different forms, such as adesktop view, a single-column view, a fit-to-screen view, etc. Despitethe change of representation during the semantic zoom, the semanticthumbnail 100D and the detail view 100E look similar enough for a userto maintain a sense of which areas in the semantic thumbnail 100Dcorrespond to which area in the detail view 100E.

The semantic thumbnail 100D can be scaled arbitrarily, allowing it tofit the screen size of any computing device. For example, the semanticthumbnail 100D can be scaled to fit exactly the oval-shaped displayscreen of a computing device, such as a smart watch that can receive anddisplay a semantic thumbnail. In the exemplary embodiment of theinvention discussed here, as shown in FIG. 4, the semantic thumbnail100D is scaled to fit the display width of a computing device. Further,because the font size of the abridged text can be adjusted according tothe requirements of the computing device requesting the Web page, asemantic thumbnail 100D can be adapted to different computing devices.For example, PDA and smart phones usually have high resolution, and,thus, a crisp display. Adjusting the font size of a semantic thumbnail100D displayed on such devices to the smallest readable size maximizesthe amount of readable screen content. In contrast, display screenshaving low resolution will produce blurry semantic thumbnails when verysmall fonts are displayed. A CRT TV screen is an example of a relativelylow-resolution display. When such displays are employed, the inventionsets the minimum font size for the semantic thumbnail 100D at a highervalue than when a higher resolution display is employed.

In essence, the invention enables a semantic thumbnail 100D to bescalable to fit a variety of display screen sizes and types. FIG. 6illustrates that a semantic thumbnail 100D can be adapted to differentscreen sizes and font sizes. More specifically, FIG. 6 illustrates howthe semantic thumbnail 100D will appear on the screens of the computingdevices 206A, 206B, 206C illustrated in FIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 6, thesemantic thumbnail 100D adapts to different font sizes according to thescreen space of the computing devices.

Some embodiments of the invention may incorporate an alternate design ofthe semantic thumbnail 100D. This alternate design, named herein asemantic thumbnail overlay, provides a traditional thumbnail 100C in thebackground of the display. The readable text fragments of a semanticthumbnail 100D overlay the traditional thumbnail 100D. To preserve theoverall look and feel of the Web page, the invention makes the fontcolor and cut line color of the overlaying text segments correspond tothe font color and background color of that text within the traditionalthumbnail 100C in the background. In one exemplary embodiment of thisalternate design, the area of the overlaying text was extended by threepixels, feathered with one pixel, and then blurred. To make anoverlaying text stand out more, preferably, the overlaying text issurrounded with a background-colored cut line one pixel wide. To reducethe visual interference between the overlaying text and the traditionalthumbnail in the background, the area on which the overlaying textresides is blurred. FIG. 7 illustrates such an alternative design. Itshows that the text blocks 104C, 108C in the traditional thumbnail 100Care used as the background, on which the readable text segments 104D,108D of the semantic thumbnail 100D are displayed.

FIG. 8 provides an exemplary process 800 for converting a Web page intoa semantic thumbnail. This process 800 may be implemented in the Webpage converter program 312 illustrated in FIG. 3. As noted above, theWeb page converter program 312 converts a Web page into a semanticthumbnail that preserves the overall appearance of the Web page anddisambiguates (clarifies) the text content of the Web page.

Upon receiving a request for a Web page from a computing device(hereinafter “target device”) (see decision block 802), the exemplaryprocess 800 loads the requested Web page. See block 803. In embodimentsof the invention where the Web page converter program 312 resides on asystem that is separate from the Web server 202, such as a proxy server204 or a computing device, the process 800 downloads the requested Webpage from the Web server 202 that hosts the Web page. In embodiments ofthe invention where the Web Server 202 itself is the requestingcomputing device, no action of downloading the Web page is necessary. Inembodiments of the invention, display parameters of the semanticthumbnail are provided. See block 804. As a result, the process 800receives information such as the target width of the semantic thumbnail,the minimum font size that enables the text in the semantic thumbnail tobe readable on the target device, etc. After receiving specificinformation about the semantic thumbnail, the process 800 then proceedsto a process 806 that converts the Web page into a semantic thumbnail.See block 806.

FIG. 9 illustrates one exemplary implementation of the process 806. InFIG. 9, the process 806 starts by executing a routine 812, an example ofwhich is shown in FIGS. 10 and 11 and described below, that ensures alltext in the semantic thumbnail is readable. After executing the routine812, the process 806 proceeds to render the resultant Web page. Seeblock 814. The process 806 then proceeds to scale the resultant Web pageso it may be displayable on the target device. See block 816. Inembodiments of the invention, when the target device has a scalingcapability, the process 806 lets the target device scale the Web page.Consequently, the process 806 outputs a converted HTML page. This pagehas the structure of a semantic thumbnail, i.e., it contains abbreviatedbut enlarged text, but the page is still as big as the original page. Insome embodiments of the invention, if the target device does not havescaling capability, the process 806 scales the processed Web page andsaves it as a bitmap for direct display by the target device.

Different embodiments of the invention may execute the three proceduresincluded in process 806 in different sequences than the one illustratedin FIG. 9. For example, some embodiments of the invention first scalethe Web page to, for example, the target width of the semanticthumbnail. It then processes text segments in the scaled Web page toensure the readability of the content. It then renders the semanticthumbnail. In other embodiments of the invention, the text segments in aWeb page are first processed to ensure readability of the content in theWeb page once it is displayed on the target device. The processed Webpage is then rendered and scaled.

FIGS. 10 and 11 illustrate one exemplary implementation of the routine812 that ensures all text in the resultant semantic thumbnail isreadable. As illustrated in FIG. 10, all text that is smaller than athreshold value is enlarged. Enlarged text typically occupies more linesthan it did in its original font size. To preserve the line count, asillustrated in FIG. 11, words are removed or cropped until the totalnumbers of lines in the page are preserved.

The routine 812 (FIG. 10) first partitions the requested Web page intoelements. See block 830. In embodiments of the invention, the partitionis done by recursively traversing the Web page's Document Object Model.A Web page's Document Object Model allows programs and scripts todynamically access and update the content objects contained by the Webpage. The content objects of a Web page include elements and hyperlinks,for example. In embodiments of the invention, elements compriseparagraphs of text, input boxes, option boxes, or other elementsspecified in a style sheet.

The routine 812 then iterates through all the elements of the Web page.For each element, the routine 812 performs the following actions. Itfirst checks to see if any text in the element is smaller than athreshold value. See decision block 831.

In the exemplary embodiment of the invention, in the case that the Webpage has been scaled, the threshold value is the minimum font size. Theminimum font size ensures a text to be identifiable on the targetdevice. In embodiments of the invention, the minimum font size may behigher than what is necessary to display readable text on the targetdevice. In the case that the Web page has not been scaled, the thresholdvalue is the intermediate font size. The intermediate font sizeguarantees that if text with the intermediate font size were scaled, theresulting text would have the minimum font size. For example, if thetarget width of the semantic thumbnail is 240 pixels, the minimum fontsize is 7 pixels, and the Web page is 800 pixels wide, then the scalingfactor for scaling the Web page into a semantic thumbnail is 3.3333 (800pixels/240 pixels). Consequently the intermediate font size would be23.33 (7 pixels times 3.333).

As shown in FIG. 10, if any text in the element is smaller than athreshold value, the text is processed, i.e., enlarged and trimmed so itfits well into the element. The processing of text may be done withinthe element itself. For example, the text may be enlarged and words inthe text are removed. However, this approach may require repeatedrendering of the page in order to examine whether the processed textfits well into the element. An alternative approach is to extract thetext in the element into a string. The text in the string is thenprocessed to ensure it fits into the width of the element in the page.Then, the text in the element is compared with the text in the string toensure that the text in the element is the same as the text in thestring. The advantage of this approach is that the page itself does nothave to be rendered repeatedly to verify whether the text in the elementfits well into the width of the element. FIG. 10 illustrates thealternative approach. The illustrative example in FIG. 10 is notintended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise formdisclosed. People skilled in the art or related fields should understandthat alternative approaches might be used to process the text in anelement so it fits well into the width of the element.

In FIG. 10, if the answer to decision block 831 is YES, meaning that thetext in the element is smaller than the threshold value, the routine 812proceeds to extract the width, height, and font attributes of theelement. See block 832. From these attributes, the number of lines oftext in this element is inferred, for example, by dividing elementheight by font height. In embodiments of the invention, the routine 812then extracts the text from the element and stores the text in a string.See block 834. The text in the string is enlarged to the font sizespecified by the device-specific threshold. See block 836. Next theroutine 812 proceeds to a text reduction process 840 that ensures theenlarged string will fit in the width of the element. FIG. 11illustrates one exemplary implementation of the process 840 and will bediscussed in detail later. As known by the ordinary skilled in the artand other related fields, the enlarged string can also be trimmedaccording to spatial constraints other than the width of the element.For example, the expansion of the font size of text in an element maycause the element to expand vertically. One spatial constraint can bethat the vertical expansion of the element caused by increase in fontsize of the text should be no more than twice the number of linesoccupied by the element originally.

After executing the text reduction process 840, the routine 812 proceedsto adjust text in the element so that both the content and font size ofthe text matches what is in the string. See block 841. The routine 812then proceeds to check if there is another element to be processed forthe requested Web page. See decision block 842. In the case there isone, the routine 812 loops back to decision block 831. If the routine812 has processed all the elements in the Web page, the routine 812returns.

FIG. 11 illustrates one exemplary implementation of the text reductionprocess 840 that ensures text in an enlarged string will fit in thewidth of the element. The process 840 first proceeds to check if theenlarged string would cause a text overflow in the element. See decisionblock 841. If the answer is NO, the process 840 returns. If the answeris YES, the process 840 proceeds to check if there is only one word inthe element. See decision block 843. If the answer to decision block 843is YES, the process 840 crops the word until it fits in the width of theelement. See block 844. The process 840 then returns.

If there are multiple words in the enlarged string, the process 840trims the enlarged string so it fits in the width of the element. Seeblock 845. Some embodiments of the invention assume that words with thehighest frequencies of appearances in the language that the string iswritten in are of the least significance. Such words include “a,” “the,”“in,” etc. In trimming the enlarged string, the process 840 removeswords with the highest frequencies of appearances in the language untilthe remaining words fit in the width of the element.

In embodiments of the invention, the area of an element is estimated bymultiplying the width of the element by the number of text lines in theelement. In the case that the element has multiple lines of text (seedecision block 846), the process 840 trims the enlarged string furtherby breaking the string into multiple lines of text according to thewidth of the element. See block 848. The process 840 then proceeds toremove more words according to the frequencies of their appearances inthe language until the remaining words fit in each line of the element.See block 850. The process 840 then returns. During the process ofremoving words from the string, if it comes to the situation that theelement does not have enough room to even accommodate a single word, aword is selected and cropped to fit the space constraints.

Other embodiments of the invention trim the enlarged string bypreserving only the words that occur frequently in the string, butrarely in the language that the string is written in. Alternatively,trimming the enlarged string is done by preserving special terms, suchas search terms or terms contained in the user profile describinginterests of the current user of the target device.

While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated anddescribed, it will be appreciated that various changes can be madetherein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

1. A computer-implemented method for converting a page formed ofdiscrete elements, such as a Web page, into a semantic thumbnail,comprising: (a) receiving information about display parameters of asemantic thumbnail version of the page, wherein the semantic thumbnailpreserves the overall appearance of the page, and displays text inreadable form; and (b) based on the display parameters, converting thepage into the semantic thumbnail.
 2. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 1, wherein the display parameters include: (a) the target width ofthe semantic thumbnail; and (b) the minimum font size that ensures textto be readable on a computing device.
 3. The computer-implemented methodof claim 2, wherein converting the page into the semantic thumbnailincludes: (a) processing text in the page; and (b) scaling the page. 4.The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein processing text inthe page includes: (a) partitioning the page into elements; (b)calculating a threshold value, which is the minimum font size if thepage has been scaled, and is the result of multiplying the minimum fontsize by the display width of the page and dividing the product by thetarget width of the semantic thumbnail if the page has not been scaled;(c) enlarging text in an element to a font size of the threshold valueif the text has a font size that is smaller than the threshold value;(d) trimming the enlarged text so it fits the width of the element; and(e) repeating (c) and (d) for each element in the page.
 5. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein trimming the enlargedtext includes removing words in each line that have the highestfrequencies of appearances in the language that the enlarged text iswritten in so that the remaining text in each line fits the width of theelement.
 6. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein trimmingthe enlarged text includes preserving words in each line that occurfrequently in the enlarged text, but rarely in the language that theenlarged text is written in so that the preserved text in each line fitsthe width of the element.
 7. The computer-implemented method of claim 4,wherein trimming the enlarged text includes: (a) receiving informationabout a word in the enlarged text; and (b) preserving the word.
 8. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 4, wherein trimming the enlargedtext includes, if the element cannot fit even one word, selecting a wordin the enlarged text and cropping the word so that it fits into theelement.
 9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, furthercomprising providing a detail view of an unabbreviated version of thepage, upon receiving a zooming request on the semantic thumbnail. 10.The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprisingoverlaying the semantic thumbnail over a thumbnail of the page, whereinthe thumbnail serves as a background for the semantic thumbnail.
 11. Acomputing system for converting a page formed of discrete elements, suchas a Web page, into a semantic thumbnail that preserves the overallappearance of the page and displays text in readable form, is configuredwith computer-implemented instructions for: (a) receiving informationabout display parameters of a semantic thumbnail version of the page,wherein the semantic thumbnail preserves the overall appearance of thepage, and displays text in readable form; and (b) based on the displayparameters, converting the page into the semantic thumbnail.
 12. Thecomputing system of claim 11, wherein the display parameters include:(a) the target width of the semantic thumbnail; and (b) the minimum fontsize that ensures text to be readable on a computing device.
 13. Thecomputing system of claim 12, wherein converting the page into thesemantic thumbnail includes: (a) processing text in the page; and (b)scaling the page.
 14. The computing system of claim 13, whereinprocessing text in the page includes: (a) partitioning the page intoelements; (b) calculating a threshold value, which is the minimum fontsize if the page has been scaled, and is the result of multiplying theminimum font size by the display width of the page and dividing theproduct by the target width of the semantic thumbnail if the page hasnot been scaled; (c) enlarging text in an element to a font size of thethreshold value if the text has a font size that is smaller than thethreshold value; (d) trimming the enlarged text so it fits the width ofthe element; and (e) repeating (c) and (d) for each element in the page.15. The computing system of claim 14, wherein trimming the enlarged textincludes removing words in each line that have the highest frequenciesof appearances in the language that the enlarged text is written in sothat the remaining text in each line fits the width of the element. 16.The computing system of claim 14, wherein trimming the enlarged textincludes preserving words in each line that occur frequently in theenlarged text, but rarely in the language that the enlarged text iswritten in so that the preserved text in each line fits the width of theelement.
 17. The computing system of claim 14, wherein trimming theenlarged text includes: (a) receiving information about a word in theenlarged text; and (b) preserving the word.
 18. The computer implementedmethod of claim 14, wherein trimming the enlarged text includes, if theelement cannot fit even one word, selecting a word in the enlarged textand cropping the word so that it fits into the element.
 19. Thecomputing system of claim 11, further comprising providing a detail viewof an unabbreviated version of the page, upon receiving a zoomingrequest on the semantic thumbnail.
 20. The computing system of claim 11,further comprising overlaying the semantic thumbnail over a thumbnail ofthe page, wherein the thumbnail serves as a background for the semanticthumbnail.
 21. A computer-readable medium containing computer-executableinstructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer toperform a method for converting a page formed of discrete elements, suchas a Web page, into a semantic thumbnail, the method comprising: (a)receiving information about display parameters of a semantic thumbnailversion of the page, wherein the semantic thumbnail preserves theoverall appearance of the page, and displays text in readable form; and(b) based on the display parameters, converting the page into thesemantic thumbnail.
 22. The computer-readable medium of claim 21,wherein the display parameters include: (a) the target width of thesemantic thumbnail; and (b) the minimum font size that ensures text tobe readable on a computing device.
 23. The computer-readable medium ofclaim 22, wherein converting the page into the semantic thumbnailincludes: (a) processing text in the page; and (b) scaling the page. 24.The computer-readable medium of claim 23, wherein processing text in thepage includes: (a) partitioning the page into elements; (b) calculatinga threshold value, which is the minimum font size if the page has beenscaled, and is the result of multiplying the minimum font size by thedisplay width of the page and dividing the product by the target widthof the semantic thumbnail if the page has not been scaled; (c) enlargingtext in an element to a font size of the threshold value if the text hasa font size that is smaller than the threshold value; (d) trimming theenlarged text so it fits the width of the element; and (e) repeating (c)and (d) for each element in the page.
 25. The computing system of claim24, wherein trimming the enlarged text includes removing words in eachline that have the highest frequencies of appearances in the languagethat the enlarged text is written in so that the remaining text in eachline fits the width of the element.
 26. The computer-readable medium ofclaim 24, wherein trimming the enlarged text includes preserving wordsin each line that occur frequently in the enlarged text, but rarely inthe language that the enlarged text is written in so that the preservedtext in each line fits the width of the element.
 27. Thecomputer-readable medium of claim 24, wherein trimming the enlarged textincludes: (a) receiving information about a word in the enlarged text;and (b) preserving the word.
 28. The computer-readable medium of claim24, wherein trimming the enlarged text includes, if the element cannotfit even one word, selecting a word in the enlarged text and croppingthe word so that it fits into the element.
 29. The computer-readablemedium of claim 21, further comprising providing a detail view of anunabbreviated version of the page, upon receiving a zooming request onthe semantic thumbnail.
 30. The computer-readable medium of claim 21,further comprising overlaying the semantic thumbnail over a thumbnail ofthe page, wherein the thumbnail serves as a background for the semanticthumbnail.